5 Eagles Land on PFF Top 100 Players List for 2021 Season

The Eagles landed Australian rugby player Jordan Mailata in the seventh round of the 2018 NFL Draft. .

Now he is one of the top 100 players in all of football, according to Pro Football Focus.

Pro Football Focus just released it list of the Top 100 players in the NFL for the 2021 season and the Eagles’ left tackle came in as the 22nd best player in the league with a 90.3 grade for the season, making him the second highest graded left tackle in football behind Trent Williams of the 49ers.

The rise of Jordan Mailata continues apace, with a new career benchmark for the man who only took up the sport of football in 2018. The Eagles tackle already beat out a first-round draft pick for the Eagles' left tackle job and secured himself a big-money contract. This season, he set about proving his ability as an elite player, earning a PFF grade of at least 83.0 in both pass protection and as a run-blocker. Given how new he is to the sport and the incredible size and athleticism he brings to the table, it is still very possible he is still getting better.

Right after Mailata on the list of the Top 100 players, coming in at No. 23, is Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert.  Goedert had a breakout season of sorts, becoming the Eagles top target after the trade of Zach Ertz.

It felt as though Goedert became a far bigger part of the Eagles offense this season, but his 72 targets over the season was only eight more than last year and six fewer than the season before that. What changed was just how effective he was on those targets. He caught a career-high 77.8% of them, gaining an average of 14.8 yards every catch, with 6.8 of that coming after the ball was in his hands. Goedert is a tough cover for any NFL defense and a big weapon with the ball in his hands.

Goedert ended the year with 56 catches for 830 yards and four scores, good for 14.8 yards per catch.  He figures to be a bigger part of the offense moving forward as the clear No. 1 tight end for a full season.

Another Eagles offensive lineman cracked the list, with veteran right tackle Lane Johnson, ranking No. 52 on the list.

Few players are as consistently dominant when on the field as Johnson. The right tackle missed a few games due to injury, but he allowed just 11 pressures — none of which were sacks — across 448 pass-blocking snaps. Johnson’s biggest issue is injuries, which have caused him to miss time in each of the past three seasons, but he was outstanding this year, regardless.

With Mailata and Johnson, the Eagles have one of the best tackle tandems in the entire NFL.

On the defensive side of the ball, coming in at No. 59 on the list is Eagles corner Darius "Big Play" Slay.

“Big Play Slay” lived up to his name in 2021, posting a career-high PFF coverage grade (84.5) and showing himself to be a threat to score when he gets the ball in his hands. The Eagles corner allowed a passer rating of 76.2 when targeted, the lowest figure of his career, and catches in his coverage averaged just 10.4 yards per reception. Slay bounced back to his best play after back-to-back seasons of relative struggles.

Slay was a stud for the Eagles this season, giving them a lock-down corner that they were hoping for when they acquired him from Detroit before the 2020 season.

The last Eagles player in the NFL Top 100 came in ranked No. 98, defensive tackle Javon Hargrave.

If pass-rushing snaps were all that Hargrave played this past season, he would be far higher on the list. Only five interior defenders finished the year with more pressures than Hargrave’s 61, and he rushed the passer far fewer times than all but one of those players. His 91.6 pass-rushing grade ranked second only to Aaron Donald, but his 30.1 run-defense grade was one of the worst such marks in the league.

Hargrave got off to a fast start this season, and was ranked as one of the top interior pass rushers this year, ranking No. 2 in that category behind just Aaron Donald.  However, his run grade is what had him ranked lower on the list.